TUCSON (KGUN9-TV) - The new president at University of Arizona will replace Ann Weaver Hart who became President about four and a half years ago.
Hart came to UA from Temple University in Philadelphia. She took a lot of criticism after she took a side job with a for-profit college, in addition to her duties at U of A. Several months ago she told the Arizona Board of Regents she was not requesting an extension of her contract.
Old Main is the oldest building on the University of Arizona campus and it is the home base of the University President, Dr Ann Weaver Hart but now that she is leaving the Presidency we are taking a look at some of the things that happened during her term.
Old Main was falling apart when Hart and the University preserved the crumbling old building and turned it into an office complex.
Another landmark, McKale Center got a multi million dollar upgrade on her watch.
Overall Hart seemed to keep a low profile, at least as far as news interviews go. We have just a few interviews in our archives, mostly about challenges to the University budget. As leader of the biggest employer in Pima County a lot of her concerns would naturally involve budgets and programs.
University fundraising reached almost 1.6 billion dollars during her time. In the face of rising tuitions she helped create a system of guaranteed tuition levels to help families plan college costs and worked to foster more science research and tech development.
n 2014, she did not comment on camera after violent disturbances just outside the University gates when UA basketball lost in the NCAA Sweet Sixteen.
Hart came under fire early last year when she took a job with another school besides UA. She took a paid job on the board of DeVry University, a for-profit school the Federal Trade Commission sued claiming DeVry misled students about how successful they would be after a DeVry education.
Hart rejected calls to resign from DeVry. She did tell Arizona's Regents she did not want to extend her UA contract. She will remain at U of A as a professor in the Education Department.
The UA News Service provided this summary of President Hart’s accomplishments:
· Never Settle: UA’s first strategic academic and business plan
· $1B Banner Deal: UA gets a preeminent clinical partner and tens of millions of dollars for medical education and research. Tucson gets a new hospital and outpatient clinic.
· Guaranteed Tuition: Working with administration, student leaders and faculty, the UA moved quickly to create a Guaranteed Tuition Plan that allows families to plan financially and encourages students to graduate in four years.
· First Employee Raises since 2007 in 2013 and now 2016: Done in consultation with student leaders who agreed that the university needed to invest in its people.
· Arizona Now completed at $1.59B, two years ahead of schedule; Most successful university capital campaign in the state
· 100% Engagement: Student experiential learning program now shows up on transcripts, university formalizes the concept (office in the Union ground floor) and employers starting to take notice.
· Uber partnership: UA’s space and optical technology hits the road
· Tech Launch Arizona: Hired the current leader, David Allen, who set a process for turning discoveries into inventions through patenting and licensing and then creating industry partnerships. Also provided UA professors with commercialization criteria as incentives to the tenure and promotion process.
· Transportation Research Institute: With faculty from nearly every college on campus, the institute was developed to address the challenges of modern transportation with solutions such as connected and automated vehicles and a connected infrastructure.
· Defense and Security Research Institute launch: Space technology to help protect the planet and America.
· UA Online: Developed UA’s first online degree program, which earned national recognition from US World & News Report the first year it was eligible.
· Arizona’s 50 most influential women (Arizona Business Magazine, 2013)
· Old Main renovation: We nearly lost this iconic building.
· ENR2 construction: This building is a showcase for environmental ethic: A Platinum LEED building is the home for environmental sciences
· The Biosciences Partnership Building: Two of them., one in PHX, one in Tucson, both associated with Health Science and will rocket-boost UA efforts in bioscience.
· Budget restructuring; RCM implemented
